Perdue already faces rocky road

Six months into her first term as North Carolina governor, Democrat Bev Perdue is facing dismal poll numbers that rank her as one of the most unpopular governors in the nation.

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Perdue’s approval rating has dropped precipitously since she took office, falling from a high of 60 percent in mid-January to an anemic 25 percent in mid-July, according to Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm.

“It’s as ugly as I’ve ever seen for any governor at any time in our state,” says Dean Debnam, president of PPP.

Perdue, it seems, has been hit by a perfect political storm, generated by forces beyond her control but exacerbated by her own actions. The economic downturn has led to a sharp and swift rise in unemployment rates and forced Perdue to deal with imposing budget shortfalls almost right out of the gate.

In April, she was required to close a budget gap by ordering mandatory furloughs for state employees and public school teachers — two groups that happen to be a cornerstone of the Democratic base.

Teachers responded by staging rallies and marches in downtown Raleigh.

“Our members were quite upset, and I think we certainly let the governor and governor’s office know that,” says Sheri Strickland, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators. “Since that time, our members continue to be upset. That’s not something they easily forget or put behind them.”

Not long after the furloughs came rancorous negotiations over the current budget, marked by Perdue’s call for the Democratic-controlled legislature to come up with as much as $1.5 billion in new taxes, though she did not specify what those taxes should be.

With the furloughs, “she made half of the electorate mad,” says Gary Pearce, a veteran Democratic strategist, who worked for former Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt. “Then she went and proposed tax increases, just to make the other half mad.”

Perdue adviser Mac McCorkle said under the circumstances, it was nearly impossible to make everyone — or anyone — happy.

“The dilemma of many governors is the reality regarding the need to raise taxes, but not being able to raise them sufficiently to protect social services in such a crisis time,” McCorkle says.

Complicating matters, Perdue has had to contend with fallout from scandals surrounding her unpopular two-term Democratic predecessor, Mike Easley. While Perdue wasn’t close to Easley — and was elected separately from him — she served as his lieutenant governor for eight years.

“No one who’s watching this is saying, ‘Oh, Bev’s connected to it,” says one prominent Democratic strategist in the state. “But it is clearly a damper. That atmosphere ain’t good.”

Mostly, though, Perdue’s predicament is rooted in the state’s economic woes, which are marked by a sharp decline in revenues and a spike in unemployment rates — from 4.7 percent just two years ago to 11.1 percent now.